Against satire: Just get to the point already, dude

The recent controversy over my last column titled “Why Condemning ISIS is Offensive,” which you can read on The Pitt News website, has caused a massive paradigm shift for me. 

The article, which was satirical, prompted substantial outrage by those who believed I thought that asking Muslims to condemn ISIS was the equivalent of the atrocities ISIS has committed.

Before that column ran, I thought that satire was a useful tool for promoting discussion in an entertaining way. But I now realize that satire is actually a horrible invention used to deceive the masses — particularly Reddit users. 

Satire is clearly a dangerous tool of darkness and should be banned or, at the very least, clearly marked.

Why, you ask? For one, it’s dishonest. Reflecting on my time as a satirist, I realize that it was absolutely essential for my readers to clearly know my actual thoughts on ISIS, Penn State football, climate change and a host of other important topics. What if I hypothetically run for public office? How could people take me seriously? It would be a great shame if they believed I thought condemning ISIS was the height of injustice, that football should be a priority over everything and that climate change is simply a myth. 

I realize now that Eli Talbert’s words and opinions are not those of a random college student, but those of a possible future politician, and I should be more responsible. The evil of running an ad that falsely accuses your opponent of unjustly freeing a murderer — as Mark Begich, a sitting U.S. senator, recently did about his challenger, Dan Sullivan — is nothing compared to the blatant deceptiveness of satire.

In addition, I have also come to consider the emotional damage I may have caused my readers. I am sure some of them spent whole hours foaming at the mouth at my stupidity and lack of logic. I am truly sorry for the countless hours they lost being outraged at my column, when they could have been outraged at something else. 

But mostly, I apologize for the embarrassment some experienced when they realized that my piece was indeed satirical. I understand the deep, lasting emotional trauma not getting a joke can cause. Therefore, I will dedicate myself to stopping such shaming in the future. After all, even if no physical harm was done, as some on Reddit would say, “there are no reals, just feels.”

I now know that my type of satire has the insidious effect of causing people to question the author’s motive. It is because of villains like me that people will actually have to critically think about a piece, rather than to just read the headline. They will have to ask themselves bothersome questions, such as if the facts the author uses actually line up with his argument or what the agenda of the author is. I truly regret that I have infringed on my reader’s all-American right to not think.

Sadly, the harm satire causes doesn’t stop at the readers. While I have not received any complaints so far, I understand that those who are satirized also often experience emotional trauma. It might be their arguments that are rigorously deconstructed and made fun of, and not them directly, but I know it still hurts.

Satire can even damage legitimate journalists. How could anyone take Ann Coulter’s column about why soccer is un-American seriously if there were a bunch of satirists running around? The answer is they couldn’t — one simply would not be able to differentiate between what was real and what was fake.

If more people wrote plausible satire, discussion would be seriously devalued as people would assume that radical views — such as the one expressed on the blog “Radical Wind,” claiming that all intercourse is rape — are satirical. Where would we be without such views?

All these reasons significantly outweigh any trite explanation that satire serves as an important function as a fun way to address issues. It might be an approach that has been used since the ancient Greeks, but in modern times, satire is too dangerous. The strain of typing words into Google to get more information and form one’s own opinion is just too much for most — people need to do as little reading as possible when trying to understand a different point of view.

Therefore, to prevent the masses from being fooled into believing a false opinion, the scourge of satire must be eliminated. I hope you join me on this journey and read my next column which will not be satirical. Once again, I am deeply sorry.

Email Eli at ejt26@pitt.edu